“You know, surprisingly, they don’t sell a lot of brains in the local 24-hour grocery store around the corner from my house.” ~Rusty Fischer

While we were in Beaufort for Emma’s softball tournament this weekend, we had a lot of time to kill. Killing time is not easy when you have four kids to entertain and a lack of a small fortune to spend. Much of our days were filled with [read in your whiniest voice possible] –

“It’s too hoooot out.”

“I’m boooored.”

“There’s nothing to doooo.”

“This suuuucks.”

“I wanna’ go hoooome.”

“Can we pleeeease go do something fun?”

After a long, hard search on the Google, Eugene finally discovered some fun, cheap activities to do for the monsters kids that were fairly close to our hotel and the tournament location.

First stop on the list: What’s Beneath the Surface: A Teen Zombie Program

Yep, that’s right. Parents of the year, right here… We decided to take our kids (only one of whom is a teen) to learn how zombie makeup is applied in movies and on TV. Wait, though. That’s not all! After they’re taught how to make a zombie, they’re made into zombies themselves!!!

So we get to the library and learn all about how to make the grossest, goriest cuts, bruises, and gashes. Then comes the best part – the kids became actual, real zombies! For real!

Gerald decided on a nice, deep, gross gash in his forearm. The artist lady even peeled back the skin for extra gore!

Ronald went with a gory, swollen, bruised broken bone look in his forearm. The bruising was a disgusting blend of just the right greens, yellows, and purples.

Jeremy chose a vulgar mix of busted eye and lip. His eye had a deep gash, much in need of a few stitches, and purple bruising, while his nose dripped a deep red blood.

Emma also went with the busted mouth. Her nose oozed blood, and her mouth had a foul color and mixture of bruising and blood and scabbing.

As you can see, they’re quite the walking dead!

After their zombie makeovers, we left the library in search of our next cheap adventure to kill time. While we were standing in the library parking lot discussing our options, a very pregnant lady came running up to us in a panic. Of course my first thought was that she was about to give birth right there in our parking space and needed our help. Dr. Alicia at your service, ma’am.

But that wasn’t the problem. Our kids were the problem. Panicky pregnant lady was barely comprehensible as she blurted out, “OhmyGod. Aretheyokay? Areyouokay? Haveyoubeeninacaraccident?” Huh? I looked at her like she was speaking Japanese. (And I don’t know Japanese, in case you were wondering.) She must have seen the look of complete befuddlement on my face because she finally elaborated. “Thekids! They’rebleeding! Aretheyokay? Wereyouinanaccident?!”

Oh, damn. The kids. I felt a slight twinge of guilt for making this poor, massively pregnant lady have a panic attack. “Uh, um, no ma’am… The zombies are just fine. They weren’t in an accident. Their dad and I just took them to get teen zombie makeovers. They’re just zombies. That’s all…” After I got the glare of death, she sucked in a deep breath, stuck her chest out, grabbed her kid’s hand, and she stomped away. Oops.

The kids zombies all thought that was just the funniest thing to ever happen. They giggled about it all the way to our next stop – the grocery store. Believe it or not, we actually made it all the way through the grocery store with only a few stares and were on the way out before we were actually stopped again.

This time it was a cute little old lady who stopped us. “Oh dear! Lawd, are y’all alright? Those poor babies – Have they been hurt?” Here were go again… “No ma’am, they haven’t been hurt, and they’re just fine. They were turned into zombies at the library this afternoon.” To my utter surprise, she responded with, “Oh, well isn’t that neat?! And it looks so real, too! Lawd, them babies is just as cute as can be. And I’m so glad that they haven’t been hurt.”

Again, our little zombies giggled all the way to the car and back to our hotel. They didn’t mention dying of boredom again that whole day. Maybe because they were already dead. Hmm…